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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................................................................2
WHY ARE CHILDREN IRRITABLE....................................................................................................................................................4
WHAT MAKES YOUR CHILD IRRITABLE .......................................................................................................................................7
HOW DOES A CHILD BECOME CALM .........................................................................................................................................13
GUIDELINES TO MAKE YOUR CHILD BECOME A HAPPIER CHILD ........................................................................................19
REFERENCES & RESOURCES.........................................................................................................................................................25

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INTRODUCTION
One of the most disturbing psychological challenges of parenthood is a child
who is chronically irritable, angry, and who explodes into temper tantrums.
In fact, anger and irritability are among the most common reason parents
consult health professionals.
Irritability can have a damaging effect on the child’s development, the
parent-child relationship, and family life.
What’s worse, parents become desperate in their attempts to calm their
child.

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And when nothing works, parents often feel useless and worry why their
child appears unhappy most of the time. For the child, it is an unsettling
experience to be chronically unregulated when things like transitions to a
new activity, getting dressed, or being bathed trigger a tantrum.
Usually such children learn to depend on their parents to soothe them
because they lack strategies for self-calming.
And because they are irritable most of the time, they may not experience
pleasurable interactions with others.
There are many reasons a child is irritable or has problems regulating his or
her mood. It is helpful for parents to understand what might be setting off
the irritability, as well as learn ways to help their child learn to stay calm
when frustrated or distressed.
This short guide will help you achieve exactly that by showing you an easy-to-
read, easy-to-follow method to help calm your baby in a family-oriented mix
of guidance, support, and efficient techniques.

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WHY ARE CHILDREN IRRITABLE
There are several reasons why children are irritable.
Sometimes there are medical problems like chronic ear infections, severe
allergies, or urinary tract infections that may make your child uncomfortable
and experience pain.
A common problem frequently overlooked is intolerance to milk. Children
who rely on a diet heavy in gluten (wheat products) or sugar products can
experience frequent mood swings and become picky eaters.
Some children are born fussy and have a difficult temperament. Children with
a difficult temperament are usually more intense, have a hard time tolerating
change, and distress easily.

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It may be hard for them to keep a happy mood for very long. In addition,
these children tend to be less flexible when changes of any sort are
introduced.
As a result, they often get angry, whishing that things be done exactly how
they want them to be.
Perhaps the most common reason children are irritable is because they
become easily overstimulated in response to sensory stimulation.
Basic experiences like face washing, dressing, noise on the playground, or a
busy household can load their nervous system and create an internal state
that can be overwhelming to the child and which can ultimately lead to
meltdowns.
An inflexible child is often an irritable child.
Children who have problems with organization and planning often fall apart
when they are required to come up with a new way of doing things.
In addition to getting overstimulated easily, these irritable children often get
angry when they have to organize themselves to perform a complex task.
This problem is commonly associated with attention deficit disorder,
executive functioning problems, as well as motor planning issues.
Finally, it is important to determine whether your child has a mood
regulation problem that makes it difficult for him to keep a content mood.

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Many parents worry about what this could mean for their child as he grows
older. The truth is, it’s very difficult to diagnose a mood disorder in very
young children, but irritability is a factor in disorders such as anxiety or
depression. As your child grows older, you may notice other things that point
out to the fact that there is an underlying mood problem that goes beyond a
fussy, irritable temperament.
When the mood problems are unresponsive to typical solutions presented in
this guide, a consultation with a developmental or behavioral pediatrician or
a child psychologist is important.
However, an important aspect for parents to keep in mind is that what the
child needs most is to learn how to self-calm on his or her own and to
tolerate distress and frustration. This is a major focus of the strategy in this
guide.

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WHAT MAKES YOUR CHILD IRRITABLE
It is important not to overlook the impact that the parents’ moods have on a
child – it is not unusual for children with mood problems to have parents who
also struggle with their mood.
There is also the genetic component. You may have a grandparent who had
been diagnosed with anxiety, an uncle with depression, or you yourself
struggled with a mood disorder your entire life.
If this is the case, it becomes even more important to consult with a mental
health professional to understand if your child may have a mood disorder
that makes him or her irritable.

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When children are exposed to a parent who is angry, irritable, or depressed
most of the time, they learn to respond to these strong emotions.
So even if your child doesn’t have a mood disorder, he can learn that this is
how one behaves.
The important thing is for you as a parent is to take care of yourself and find
ways to self-calm and be available anytime for the difficult task of parenting.
Common Irritability Causes
Can’t fall and stay
asleep
Overstimulated by
sensory stimulation
Distresses easily Allergies, medical
problems
Reflux, eating
problems
Poor organization
skills
Overwhelmed by
limits and change
Inflexibility and
inability to adapt
Home life
disorganized
Parent(s) angry or
depressed
Sometimes, parents find that they are constantly walking on eggshells around
their irritable child. They may be afraid to set a limit or impose a change of
activity because they know their child is likely to explode into a long tantrum.
Some parents structure every minute of the child’s day to keep them
organized. But this technique can be double-edged.
By overstimulating the child or giving him one activity after the next in order
to distract him can backfire, and cause the child to become flooded with too
much stimulation, ultimately leading to an never-ending cycle of tantrums.

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In scientific studies of irritable children with regulatory problems, experts
found that irritable children express themselves through distress signals.
They may scream, kick, push, bite, and yell to let you know how they feel.
There may be very little calm discussion about things, or happy activity that
fills their time. This state of chaos and intensity causes the parent-child
interaction to become disrupted and thus everything becomes negative.
Sometimes, parents withdraw or disengage to avoid negative interactions
with their child. Moreover, they may let their child play alone when they are
happy and miss the best time to interact with them.

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HOW DOES A CHILD BECOME CALM
Every child has to learn how to handle his or her own distress.
Initially the parents calm the child.
As they read their child’s cues and see what works, they come up with a set
of soothing strategies that work for their child.
The child begins to mentally process these strategies and gradually takes over
the task of self-calming.
The process of becoming a well-regulated person depends on certain skills.
The child also needs models in the environment for how to become a good
self-calmer.

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Here are some methods that help a child become well-regulated:
 When babies cry, it helps them to have a responsive, caring, and sensitive
parent who helps them calm down. This gives the child the message that
their basic needs can be met and there are ways to handle distress. This step
requires that parent(s) know how to read their child’s signals and gestures,
as well as have a host of calming strategies at their fingertips.
 As a child matures, he learns to internalize strategies to self-calm. Consistent
use of good calming strategies helps the child lean which ones to call upon
in different situations. The child also observes others solve similar problems
and learns when and where to use which strategies.
Calming strategies and environmental modifications are most useful when
one anticipates what could go wrong and have things in place for that
moment when the child needs them.
This leads to the importance of teaching the child to understand the
precursors of irritability, to anticipate the onset of frustration and distress,
and to use appropriate strategies that are available.
Self-calming depends on the ability to problem solve before, during, and after
a distressing episode.
The child gradually learns a variety of ways to help himself organize and
monitor his own actions and to tolerate various negative emotions.

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To help your child become a thinking child, it is useful to help him or her step
out of the negative emotions and be thoughtful about the sequence of
events that occurred. Many parents say things like “I’ve told him a thousand
times that when he falls apart, he needs to go to his bedroom and calm
down, but he never listens. If I pick him up and put him there, he screams
even more”.
The problem is that once the child reaches a distressed state, he may
completely shut off his thinking brain and cannot follow the strategy that his
parents are trying to teach him.
This is why it’s important to break the strategy down into steps so that the
child learns a successful approximation of what may work.
For instance, instead of expecting the child to go directly to the bedroom, the
parent may guide the child to go to a corner of the room and hug his body
tightly while humming a calm-down song.

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The idea behind this is to teach your child how to stop and think in the
moment, then slowly move towards anticipating what could go wrong,
remembering the strategy, and using it.
It isn’t until children have the capacity to remember past events and reflect
on what has happened that they are able to internalize and use strategies
that might work.
This is when the child develops insight into his behavior.
Self-calming requires the child to decrease the state of arousal he
experiences related to distress.
An adaptable child learns to recognize the internal state of distress and
hyperarousal, then finds ways to inhibit the arousal through strategies such
as closing his eyes.
A toddler may hold his hands together or put them in his pockets when told
not to touch a fragile object, thus inhibiting himself in an adaptable way.
An adult struggling to master a very difficult task may take a break to refresh
himself mentally and physically, thus avoiding an adult-sized tantrum.
Self-regulation develops through synchronized, reciprocal, and well-
modulated interactions between parents and their children.

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A task of the young infant is to be able to tolerate the intensity of arousal
they feel while interacting with their mom or dad. An infant who is flooded
with too much arousal during interactions will avoid them and shut down.
For a child to experience pleasure from playing or interacting with his
parent(s), he needs to find ways to avoid becoming over-stimulated.
The child has to find an optimal level of internal arousal to remain engaged in
the interaction.
Consequently, the parent acts to help regulate the child’s arousal by timing
her responses, laughing at the right moment, touching her child periodically,
encouraging him, and other behaviors that engage the child.
If you’re too active, though, and doing more than what your child can
process, the child will respond by backing away or becoming distressed.
Research has shown that when the parent and child are out-of-sync, the child
learns to withdraw from the overly arousing interaction.
This can lead to disengagement, with resulting insecurity in attachments.
So how do you find the most optimal level of stimulation when you interact
with your child?
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that the optimal level varies
greatly from one child to the next and depends upon the child’s threshold for
arousal, tolerance for stimulation, and ability to self-control arousal.

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The best way to know if you’re on the right track is to watch your child’s
response. If you are offering an optimal level of stimulation, smiling occurs.
An increase in your child’s attentiveness will usually relate to you becoming
less active and more attentive to what your child is doing. Pay attention to
what your child is seeking and needing from you. If you are too active and
directive of your child, he is likely to become less focused and attentive.
Here are the skills needed for your child to become an effective self-calmer:
 Provide a model of what it looks and feels like to be calm.
 Validate your child’s level of distress. Respond to him gently through
gestures and words.
 Show your child how to calm down in many different situations.
 Expand your child’s repertoire of self-calming strategies so that when
one fails, another one might work.
 Help your child find activities that give him pleasure so that he can shift
from a distressed feeling to a positive one.
 Once your child is calm, help him think through what caused his
distress and what he can do to make himself feel better next time it
happens.
 While he is distressed, help your child to decrease that feeling. Use
calming strategies that involve his cognitive abilities.
 Help your child think of what the next step might be and remain
focused on accomplishing that goal.

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GUIDELINES TO MAKE YOUR CHILD BECOME A HAPPIER CHILD
Before embarking on a program to address your child’s irritability, it is useful
to think about when and where crying and irritability occur, and for how long,
to determine the causes of the behavior.
In some cases, a crying infant or irritable child may be responding to tensions
that you are feeling which may cause you to handle your child briskly or to
snap at them when they ask for something.
All parents have bad days, but if this is a normal course of events for you,
then what is irritability may occur whenever changes are introduced in the
everyday routine or activity.

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Once it is more apparent what might be underlying the child’s irritability,
treatment ideas can be tried.
It is very hard to help intensely unregulated children to calm down.
Sometimes parents say that once the tantrum begins, it has to run its course
and may take several hours before things get better.
An important aspect in helping your child is to develop a consistent plan in
approaching different behaviors.
The key principle to keep in mind is that we need to teach your child to calm
himself down, to become a better problem solver, and to tolerate distress
when he can’t change a frustrating situation.
As parents we need to keep calm, understand our own limits, and make a
plan that will work. At the same time, it is essential for you to understand
your child’s distress and feelings while learning how to set limits and redirect
your child to purposeful activity.
Below are listed a number of guidelines that can be used in helping your child
become a happier child:
 Rule Out Medical Problems
When an infant or child is inconsolable, it is important to determine if the
child has any medical problem that may be the primary reason for the crying
or chronic irritability.

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 Address Irritability-Generating Sensory Hypersensitivities
Inconsolability may be related to hypersensitivities that the child has to
environmental stimulation. These hypersensitivities may include clothes that
agitates the child, noises that overstimulate him, or too many activities in a
room that create an overloading effect.
The child’s sensory hypersensitivities should be addressed whenever possible
through play. If your child is hypersensitive to sounds, he should be
encouraged to engage in activities that allow him to make sounds.
In addition, movement activities are very calming, particularly ones that
provide linear movement like glider chairs and trampolines.
 Avoid Overstimulating Your Child
A common problem confronting the parent who is trying to console a crying
child is a tendency to become frantic when their efforts do not seem to work.
You may find yourself rocking your child in a forward and back motion for a
few minutes, then swinging your child in the air when the crying resumes.
Or if your child is older, you may hand him a book to look at, music to listen
to, or convince him to go outside for a change of scenery.

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When each of your ideas fail to work, you find yourself scanning the list in
your mind to offer something else that might work.
Whatever you do, it’s a good idea to step back and think how many things did
you just do to help your child calm down? If you count more than three, and
all in a short period of time, it probably is too many.
The important thing is to try one thing long enough to see if it works.
One trick is to watch to see if there are certain situations or demands that
consistently overwhelm your child.
For example, some children are overwhelmed by noisy, crowded
environments. In this case, the issue is more sensory based.
This kind of child needs to have smaller amounts of stimulation in his life.
In this regard, it is helpful to teach your child to find healthy escapes when he
is overwhelmed.
Other children cannot stand to have limits place on them because of their
inflexibility in tolerating change or their need to control what happens to
them.
Once you figure out what might be contributing to the irritability, you might
be able to help your child by prompting him when a limit is on the horizon.
An easy way to do this is to use a behavioral chart with clear pictures or
symbols of upcoming events or tasks that need to be done.

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It is very comforting for children to know what’s next on the agenda.
 Help The Child Become More Self-Reliant
Many parents complain that their child is constantly whining and demanding
their attention.
To help build the child’s capacity to organize himself and decrease reliance
on the parent to entertain him, you should try playing with your child for
about 10 to 15 minutes using the child’s favorite toys.
After the child is playing well, you should encourage him to keep playing
while you do a small chore or activity in the same room.
Every few minutes, you should check in, reassure, and praise him.
Whenever you are in involved in a task such as cooking a meal, it is wise to
offer your young child some pots and pans, plastic containers, and small
objects to use in filling, dumping, stirring, etc. so that your child can play and
imitate you while you cook. If your child complains, you should try to redirect
him physically or verbally. Moreover, you should be clear to your child about
when it is time that you will pick them up or help them and when it isn’t
because you are busy.

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As soon as you are finished with your chore, you should reward them for
playing alone or waiting by sitting with them to read a story or playing with
them briefly.
For young babies, they may be carried about in a sling while you do
household chores so that he or she can see what you are doing.
With older children – preschoolers and school-aged children – it is helpful to
teach your child to label his or her emotions and to read bodily signals so that
he or she can implement calm-down strategies on their own.
Sometimes children respond to ideas like a traffic light or mood meter with
red color denoting “time to put on the brakes” or mad or angry feelings and
green or blue colors for feeling calm or focused.
Other children respond well to thinking about their engine is running.

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REFERENCES& RESOURCES
The Baby Owner’s Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-
Shooting Tips, And Advice On First-Year Maintenance – Louis
BorgenichtM.D., JoeBorgenicht; QuirkBooks Publishing; 2012
What To Expect The First Year – Heidi Murkoff, Sharon Mazel; Workman Publishing
Company; 2014

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Baby Knows Best: Raising A Confident And Resourceful Child, The RIE™ Way –
Deborah CarlisleSolomon; Little, Brown and CompanyPublishing; 2015
Permission To Parent: How To Raise Your Child With Love And Limits – Robin
Berman; Harper WavePublishing; 2015
Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five – John
Medina; Pear PressPublishing; 2011

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